Ad Agency New Business-Stop Acting Like A Supervillain

You know how supervillains often tell the captured prisoner their evil plans, in copious detail, don’t kill them and then invariably fail when the hero escapes?

The below video from Austin Powers sums it up pretty nicely.

The gist of the video?

Dr. Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy’s nemesis, Austin Powers

Scott Evil: What? Are you feeding him? Why don’t you just kill him?

Dr. Evil: I have an even better idea. I’m going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.

Reminds me of the way a lot of agencies operate their new business strategy.

Not so much that they’re Supervillians (for the most part).

Too often, agencies have a prospect sold, and then they go into Dr. Evil mode-endlessly elaborating on agency philosophy or process, putting doubts into the prospects mind about what the reality of working with you might be.

Or the inverse-the prospect isn’t sold yet and the agency talks about everything except how they might help the prospect.

You see the second example up front on agency sites, in social media channels and in agency collateral.

Understand always-your prospects do not care about you initially- harsh but true.

You have to make them care by cutting to the chase with plain language about what kind of agency you are and how you might help them.

You don’t need to get fancy and have “sharks with frikkin’ laser beams on their heads” (another Austin Powers reference, sorry), you need to apply your experience to effective questions and once the prospect’s pain is unearthed, tie it back to how you can take away that pain.

Start this week with your agency’s site and have someone who’s not in the industry take a look at it.

If they don’t understand what you do and what type of agency you are in 20-30 seconds, you need to make some changes.